Gabriel Thomas Porteous, Jr. (born 1946) is a former United States federal judge. The United States House of Representatives voted unanimously on March 11, 2010, to impeach him. Senate impeachment proceedings began on March 17, 2010. The Senate unanimously removed him from office on December 8, 2010 and further proceeded to disqualify him from ever holding any office of honor or profit under the United States.
Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Porteous received a B.A. from Louisiana State University in 1968 and a J.D. from Louisiana State University Law School in 1971. He was a special counsel to the Office of the State Attorney General, Louisiana from 1971 to 1973. He was in private practice in Gretna, Louisiana from 1973 to 1980, and in Metairie, Louisiana from 1980 to 1984.[1] He was Chief of the Felony Complaint Division in the District Attorney's Office, Jefferson Parish, Louisiana from 1973 to 1975. He was a city attorney of Harahan, Louisiana from 1982 to 1984 He was a judge on the 24th Judicial District Court of Louisiana from 1984 to 1994.
On August 25, 1994, Porteous was nominated by President Bill Clinton to a seat on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana vacated by Robert F. Collins. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on October 7, 1994, and received his commission on October 11, 1994.
He has controversially ruled in several landmark cases against the state, including one 2002 case in which he ruled that the state of Louisiana was illegally using federal money to promote religion in its abstinence-only sex education programs. He ordered the state to stop giving money to individuals or organizations that "convey religious messages or otherwise advance religion" with tax dollars. Judge Porteous also said there was ample evidence that many of the groups participating in the Governor's Program on Abstinence were "furthering religious objectives."
Also in 2002, Porteous overturned a federal ban on rave paraphernalia such as glowsticks, pacifiers, and dust masks, originally banned due to the subculture's ties to recreational drugs such as Ecstasy, after the American Civil Liberties Union successfully claimed the ban to be unconstitutional. He had previously ruled in 1999 against a Louisiana law aimed at banning the late-term abortion procedure known as dilation and extraction.
In 2001, Porteous filed for bankruptcy, which led to revelations in the press about his private life, specifically the fact that he was alleged to have had close ties with local bail bond magnate Louis Marcotte III, at the center of a corruption probe, which has more recently led to his being the subject of investigation himself by federal investigators. In May 2006, Porteous, beset by the recent loss of his home due to Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 and the death of his wife a few months later, and still under investigation by a federal grand jury, was granted temporary medical leave and began a year-long furlough from the federal bench.
During the Senate trial for impeachment, Jonathan Turley, acting in Judge Porteous's defense, announced that Judge Porteous has decided to leave the federal bench in 2011 were he not removed from office.
Source:wikipedia
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